“Here is a man who is on his deathbed. He’s in the last stages of Alzheimers,” Griffin said of Ronald Reagan, 92, “and a woman who has been sitting by the bedside there holding his hand for nine years.

“They can’t fight back.”

The news that the former first lady, 82, is devastated by the portrayals adds fuel to the firestorm over the two-part saga. Scheduled to air Sunday, Nov. 16, and Tuesday, Nov. 18, on CBS, the movie stars James Brolin, husband of liberal Hollywood firebrand Barbra Streisand, as Ronald Reagan, and Australian-born actress Judy Davis as Nancy.

The project has been widely condemned by supporters of the former president and his wife. The protests have been sparked by published reports that the miniseries portrays President Reagan, among other things, as callously unconcerned with AIDS as it became an epidemic.

The miniseries quotes him as saying of the mainly gay AIDS victims at the time, “They that live in sin shall die in sin,” a statement the miniseries’ screenwriter, Elizabeth Egloff, acknowledges he never said.